By Linda Missal
Friendster, is an online file-sharing network that students use to keep in touch, to post pictures … and to let everyone know that they have 248 friends.
Brent Foster created a Facebook group specifically for students. He called it “F**k RVCC Bookstore.” The group was created so members could buy and sell textbooks from one another. “I just realized the potential for Facebook to save us broke RV kids some cash,” Foster wrote on the group’s homepage.
But, for one former RVCC student, the site is a confessional.
An anonymous student, call him AS, boasted of his adventures in bookstore thievery on Facebook’s version of a message board, The Wall.
“Best thing you could do?” he wrote, “Steal your books; then sell them back at the end of the semester. Profit + +. There was like, one camera in the whole place. Nowadays there might be more. It’s what I did.”
In an interview, AS said his Facebook statement was accurate.
“I went through a little phase where I thought I could save a lot of money by using the old five finger discount,” he said.
The price of books is “ridiculous,” he said. For students who are paying their own way through college, “it’s a lot of money.”
But his approach may no longer be an effective cost-saving strategy.
According to the school official who oversees bookstore operations, recent renovations to the store make it harder to steal books. Lester Miller, RVCC executive director of business services, claims the new, shorter shelves allow staff to easily see what’s going on throughout the store.
“Our students and patrons are honest, for the most part,” said Miller. At the end of each year, bookstore employees take the total stock inventory and compare it with “computerized records.” This comparison reveals how much money was lost due to theft, and according to Miller, “That number is small.”
On the other hand, people who do steal from the bookstore are difficult to prosecute. According to John Gouldey, bookstore manager for the last 20 years, “They’d have to be caught outside the store with the merchandise.”
And what would happen if a student were caught is unclear. “I don’t know that we’ve ever prosecuted anybody,” Miller said. He added that if the college knew “for a fact” that merchandise was stolen, and the person “openly admitted” that they had stolen it, “we could send them a bill.”
AS, an alumni, w ill likely remain anonymous - and free of all charges.
Miller said, “If they’re not caught or not seen then there’s not much that can be done.”
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